Free Larger Than Lyfe by Cynthia Diane Thornton

man.
    “Am I making you uncomfortable?” Mars asked as if he was reading her thoughts.
    “What makes you say that?” Keshari said.
    “Your body language. You look like a deer in headlights.”
    “No, you’re not making me uncomfortable,” Keshari responded.
    In actuality, the whole situation was taking her way out of her comfort zone. There was a serious amount of attraction building quickly between the two of them, far more quickly than Keshari would ever have anticipated.
    She moved away from Mars back toward the dinner table and he quickly followed. He caught her by the wrist and brought her around to face him again.
    “Keshari, I’m only trying to get to know you. So, why don’t you relax, stop over-analyzing the possibility of what will happen between the two of us before anything even has the chance to happen, and just play things by ear. For now, we’re having dinner…no pressure. If I’m delving into territory that you really don’t want to talk about, tell me that it’s none of my business and I’ll back off. I’m not trying to make you uncomfortable.”
    Keshari smiled and relaxed a bit. It was just dinner, she thought, and she had no idea why she felt so out of control of herself. It was probably because she was having dinner with this gorgeous, successful, funny, cool, considerate, intelligent brotha producing vibes from the very start that she’d never, ever felt before…not even with Rick.
    Boney James’s
Sweet Thing
filtered out onto the terrace from Mars’s Bose sound system. The breeze that whisked across the terrace blew Keshari’s tousled curls into her face. Mars reached out and gently stroked them away and she was wide open all over again like a deer in headlights.
    “Damn,” he said, “you really don’t seem to have any idea how beautiful you are, do you?”
    He took a huge gamble and kissed Keshari. The moment just seemed right, and during that moment when his lips, all warm and soft and perfect, touched hers, a fiery charge shot through Keshari’s entire body…CHEMISTRY.
    It had been a bad idea to accept his dinner invitation. The timing…she had some very significant issues to resolve before she could start living her life like this, with her guard down.
    “I’m sorry. I have to go,” she said quickly, pulling away from him. “I really have to go.”
    “What’s the matter?” Mars questioned. “Did I do something wrong?”
    “Of course not,” Keshari said. “I just…I can’t do this. My life is complicated enough as it is. I don’t need a romantic entanglement in my life to further complicate things.”
    She grabbed up her purse and was out of Mars’s apartment ina flash. Mars was left standing in complete bewilderment, wondering WHAT had just gone down.

    When Keshari arrived at her Range Rover parked in the subterranean garage outside Mars’s condo, all four of her tires were slashed and the body of the truck had been viciously keyed all the way around.

M ars was grinning as sweat poured down his face and chest. He dribbled the ball. He was an agile, left-handed player. He did a couple of crossovers,some fancy footwork, and then plowed straight up the court.
    Swoosh! Another basket. Twenty-one. Mars’s game.
    “Man, you must be gettin’ old,” Mars gibed at his best friend, Jason Payne. “Either that or married life has fucked up your game. It’s been a LONG time since I kicked your ass on the court two weeks in a row.”
    Every week, the two men, who’d attended Stanford Law School together, got together to play some one-on-one or get in on a pickup game with some of their boys at The Spectrum Club in Culver City or at the exclusive Los Angeles Sporting Club.
    “Man, fuck you,” Jason snapped with a toothy grin. “Married life is just fine…and so is my game. Don’t knock what you don’t even have the guts to try.”
    Jason popped Mars in the back with his sweaty towel. They headed for the locker room showers and the next group who’d